Palestinian officials are warning that the occupied West Bank risks being plunged into chaos next year, with no sign of three months of violence coming to an end and support growing among Palestinians for the current wave of attacks on Israelis.
The warnings that the status quo is untenable follow recent comments by both senior US figures and the Israeli military that the risk of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is in danger of increasing in the coming months.
A growing vacuum of political leadership on both sides is prompting renewed discussion of a series of troubling scenarios, including a collapse of the Palestinian Authority and a sudden or more gradual escalation of violence.
The PA’s potential collapse has been raised by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, and was discussed recently at a special Israeli cabinet meeting.
“The risk is total chaos,” said one Palestinian official in a bleak assessment, suggesting that the path to further escalation appeared more obvious than international engagement to mediate an end to the recent bloodshed. “It won’t happen tomorrow but it is also not so very far away.”
The renewed concern over the trajectory of present tensions has emerged asattacks by Palestinians on Israelis have settled into an almost daily routine, prompting Israel to announce this week that it is to deploy two new army battalions on the West Bank.
Since 1 October, a combination of almost daily attacks by Palestinians and clashes with Israeli soldiers have killed 117 on the Palestinian side, 21 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean, while thousands more have been injured. Many of the Palestinians killed have been attackers, while others have been shot dead by Israeli security forces during clashes.
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